


Hidden Within This Dialogue

by Thysanotus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drama, Erotica, M/M, Slash, The Quidditch Pitch: The Changing Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-25
Updated: 2005-11-25
Packaged: 2018-10-28 16:37:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10835118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thysanotus/pseuds/Thysanotus
Summary: I started this fic back whenspectacularandpretindiewere looking for new writers to join in on thezhficrelay(using keyword set 1 (goldfish, locked box with some significance that is never opened, ink stains, purple door, hair pulling)), but I'm slack, and I never actually got it finished by the deadline. Actually, I finished it tonight, and for that you have bothshaychanaanddarkasphodelfor choosing the opening of this fic as the one they would most like to see finished when I asked them. Also thanks to Lils for the awesome title.





	Hidden Within This Dialogue

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

It’s dank and airless in the basement. The heat lies over everything, a too-familiar blanket, sweating everything out of his pores.  
  
He rolls over, legs and feet tangling together in the ink-stained sheets, the remaining mark of a time when he actually cared about something. He would sit up at nights, scribbling frantically into the rolls of parchment, ink dripping off the quill as he sought for the next metaphor, the next unfolding line in his drama.  
  
“You write as if your life depends on it,” Zacharias had observed one day, and Harry had laughed, and their lips had met across the parchment blotched with ink stains and crossed out words.  
  
And for a moment, for a moment in the confusing bustle of things that was life, Harry had forgotten what it was his life actually did depend on, and why he was in this basement, and why Zacharias was the only person who came to see him, now.  
  
He sits upright on the sway-backed, sagging sofa that has become his bed and sighs. Sleep is a cat on wary feet, and will approach no further tonight. Slouching on the edge of the sofa, Harry rubs his eyes, hoping the gritty feeling will vanish.  
  
Padding to the sink in the corner of the room, Harry splashes some water in his face. The only towel is grubby and rasps against his face unpleasantly.  
  
A slight shift in the humid air behind him sends the hairs on the back of his neck bristling, damp moisture clogging his ears. The rattling slide of the only chair against the cement floor sends him whirling, hand reaching for the wand that is no longer there.  
  
Zacharias sighs, the breathy sound sinking to the floor between them. “Harry,” he begins tiredly, and Harry nods in agreement.  
  
“I know.”  
  
Harry crosses to where Zacharias is sitting, and it would be easy, so easy, to unbutton his fly, and sink to his knees on the (bruisingly-hard) concrete floor, lips parting, tongue sliding down the shaft, and Zacharias would sigh, and arch up into his mouth, hips rising off the chair, sweat gleaming and finally trickling down his forearm, hand clenched, knuckles (bruisingly-tight) pulling in Harry’s hair. Zacharias’ sweat would mingle with Harry’s, sliding over his cheekbone, edging over his (bruisingly-stretched) lips.  
  
Harry has to lick his lips and swallow before kneeling on the floor by Zacharias’ feet, noting the worn sneakers, the filthy jeans and the bruise on Zacharias’ temple.  
  
He can’t ask; he knows it’s not his place to question. Instead, he sits on his haunches with lowered eyes, sneaking surreptitious glances through his eyelashes, which turns the room into a hazy mist, the curls around Zacharias’ head transformed into a blond beacon.  
  
They hold still in silence while time flows effortlessly around them. It is always when we stretch and strain after moments that they become hard to capture. These men are accustomed to waiting, and they do so in perfect rhythm.  
  
Eventually, Zacharias moves. His hand smoothes out a crumpled drawing on the cheap plywood table. It only has three legs. The fourth has been replaced with a stack of telephone directories, and the resulting surface is somewhat wobbly. Harry shifts a little, uncomplaining, on the hard floor. Down here, the air is closer, the heat more tightly wound around you.  
  
A flash of orange catches his eye. It’s a goldfish. The same fish, drawn five or six times on the crumpled sheet of paper. Zacharias’ hand stills as Harry’s eyes track up, green meeting brown.  
  
“It was with the box, Harry,” he whispers, the thick air rasping the words, filtering the sentence, so when it rebounds into Harry’s brain, Zacharias’ lilt has slowed, softened. Harry blinks, the only show of surprise he will allow to cross his face. Snape, after all, trained him well, if grudgingly.  
  
“Why, Harry? I don’t care how. I just want to know why.”  
  
Harry shrugs, eyes firmly trained on the floor. He is, after all, dangerous. That’s why they keep him locked away down here like a circus freak, behind the purple door.  
  
“You know you don’t have to take it.” Zacharias’ voice is (almost) persuasive, and Harry can (almost) close his eyes and drift away on the fantasy. Instead, he shrugs again. It’s not worth it. Safer by far to stay down here, stay in the place he knows, with the ink-stained parchment of his dreams.  
  
Zacharias stands, rasping the chair with sudden force against the rickety table, and Harry can only watch, stunned, as it collapses to the floor in a shower of dust, lingering in the air until he can taste the wooden flavour on his tongue. Or has that been there all along? He is never quite sure.  
  
The kiss on his forehead is always the same, a press of (cool, dry) lips to (sweaty, hair-stuck damp) forehead, a fastidious avoiding of the jagged scar. He wishes, momentarily, that Zacharias would treat it as part of him, not some extraneous exoskeleton, to be shed, like a lizard’s tail, at the first opportunity.  
  
As the reverberation of footsteps disappears up the narrow stair, Harry shudders, slipping his head onto his knees, and wrapping his arms around them. The basement seems to grind closed around him, dim light and heat oppressive, silence overbearing.  
  
He has nowhere else to go.


End file.
